New Zealand under-20s have challenges but South Africa performance shows talent pipeline hasn’t dried up
Tuesday, 12 May 2026
OPINION: The New Zealand under-20s finished their Rugby Championship campaign with a 29-29 draw against South Africa on Sunday (NZ Time) - and were a missed Mika Muliaina penalty away from securing the win.
Despite a constant barrage of criticism in recent years, the New Zealand under-20s have yet to lose to the Baby Boks since the under-20s Rugby Championship started in 2024, despite the competition twice being held in South Africa.
During that period, they have recorded one win, one loss and two draws against the South Africans, and last year beat a French side at the Junior World Championship that has already produced two full France internationals.
In fact, their record stacks up favourably to the All Blacks against comparable opposition, and you do wonder if the many vocal critics of the New Zealand under-20s actually take the time to watch their program.
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If they did, Dylan Pledger’s brilliant season for Otago would have been much less of a surprise and in this year’s crop of players Finn McLeod of Canterbury is the best prospect to wear a black No 6 jersey in quite some time.
The charge against the under-20s seems to be that they don’t win the world championship every year, a hubris-filled view that shows complete ignorance about that landscape.
With due respect to some previous New Zealand under-20s teams, they might not have won the title had they been playing against some of the French, English or South African under-20s teams of the past decade.
Those three nations, and others, have lifted their game significantly in the under-20s, pouring lots of resources to produce near-professional outfits.
As an example, the South Africans went on a two-game tour of Georgia to prepare for the Rugby Championship, and South African pundits were already crowning them as the greatest age-grade team the country had ever seen.
By contrast, the New Zealand under-20s had some internal trials and that’s it - even the Super Rugby under-20s competition of recent years is no more, effectively replaced by the Super Rugby development series.
But the South Africans were hanging on against New Zealand in Gqeberha, beaten at the breakdown and challenged by big ball carriers such as McLeod and dynamic replacement Micah Fale (Waikato).
The New Zealand-South Africa rivalry hasn’t turned into a one-sided one at the under-20s level, and the young Kiwis should head towards the Junior World Championship in Georgia in June with a renewed sense of self belief.
Yes, there will be lessons from the disappointing loss to Argentina but the team finished the campaign in a far place than it started and Haki Wiseman is another very strong prospect in the No 12 jersey.
The sooner that New Zealanders dispense of the idea that the New Zealand under-20s have a right to win every tournament the better.
Those days are gone, but it’s a fallacy to suggest they have been replaced by a new era in which the talent pipeline has dried up.